


Burning the ashes

by chaoticlivi



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Post-Bus Ride (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-11 18:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20158432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticlivi/pseuds/chaoticlivi
Summary: That first night at Crowley's flat, after getting off the bus, they've got plans to make. Ineffable Husbands Bingo Prompt: Post-Armageddon.





	Burning the ashes

**Author's Note:**

> For Ineffable Husbands Bingo! Prompt: Post-Armageddon.

The sight of a _puddle_ of demon clothes lying on the floor is a tad too visceral for Aziraphale.  
  
"Oh, Crowley," he says, trying to breathe all his regret into those words.  
  
"Shit, that's right. Ligur. Sorry."  
  
The clothes disappear and Crowley puts his hand to Aziraphale's back, a feather-light touch just to get him moving again, and gestures with his other hand past a room with a fancy desk and not much else. Down a dark corridor, they reach a small, sparsely-decorated den; it contains little except for a black leather couch and a coffee table. Well, there's a _book_ on the coffee table. Now probably isn't the time for playful teasing about it, however.  
  
Just as Aziraphale starts to contemplate how dark it is in here, a couple more lights pop on from somewhere near the ceiling, and the place takes on the atmosphere of a warmly-lit cave. Crowley watches with tired eyes as Aziraphale settles on the couch, then goes off to some undefined Other Room.

"You all right there?" Crowley calls not twenty seconds later.  
  
"It's more that I'm...sad," Aziraphale says, still obsessing over the clothes. "That pile could have been you." He gives himself permission to trail off here. Everything is too raw. The feelings buzz around in his head, impossible to attach to words, too charged with millennia of denial and too drenched in grief to sort through right now.  
  
"Could've been the whole planet, but it's not," Crowley answers easily, on his way back with two appropriately-filled glasses. It's just for decorum's sake. This will not be an event for letting loose, or he'd have brought the entire bottle out here.  
  
Aziraphale chuckles without humor before Crowley slouches down closer than he does on the park bench - so close they're touching, just a little. Well. It is his home, after all. Why wouldn't he act more comfortable here?

Strictly speaking, supernatural beings don't _have_ to have body heat if they don't want to. What Aziraphale feels, though, is definitely heat where the two of them just barely touch. Where their clothes touch, really.  
  
There is no longer any reason to stay apart. Aziraphale's whole vessel tingles on the edge of six thousand years of repressed longing. He hasn't let himself dream about this, _per se,_ more than a couple of times. He's mostly had flashes of desperate want that came unbidden and were banished still incomplete. So he doesn't know how on Earth - or in Heaven or Hell, for that matter - to begin. And he's still a bit queasy from all that's happened, from the melted demon that could have been Crowley to the roar of Satan surging through the Earth, from the destruction of his original corporation to the thought of what Heaven wants to do to him now.  
  
"You don't want it?" Crowley asks. Aziraphale blinks, realizing he's been staring at Crowley's hand.  
  
"Oh, I do, thank you." Aziraphale accepts the glass and takes a tiny sip. Ah! That's lovely. He huffs as if he could blow the tension out of his soul. "I have to admit, this whole thing has been rather exhausting."  
  
Crowley leans back with his own wine and tosses his glasses aside. "You know, put your feet up, if you'd like. It's not worth worrying about the furniture tonight."  
  
Aziraphale glances at Crowley, who is already taking up the entire half of the couch, and then back at his wine, which is genuinely good, but not his main interest right now. Aziraphale bends forward to leave the glass on the table. Failing not to think too hard about it, he leans back, leans left--  
  
\--and scoots sidelong into Crowley.  
  
"O-oh," wheezes Crowley. And then, much more composed: "Almost spilled my wine."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
The demon, however, does not withdraw. Instead, he places a hesitant arm around Aziraphale. Crowley smells just as Aziraphale had already known he would, like smoke and some - some newfangled human product that's almost cologne. Whatever it is, it's spicy. And it's even better up close.  
  
There are multiple reasons why Aziraphale should not be experiencing a headrush, but he is.  
  
"Comfortable enough?" Crowley asks. His wine glass is suddenly on the coffee table, too.  
  
Aziraphale nods. "Mmm," he understates. And then, because he doesn't know how to do anything else, he forges ahead with matters that would once have been business. "Crowley. I think I know what Agnes Nutter's last prophecy means." Aziraphale reaches into his coat pocket and holds the scrap up so Crowley can look at it from over his shoulder. "Or what it might mean...actually, I could be wrong--"  
  
"Well, give it a shot, angel," Crowley says, taking the paper to study it.  
  
"'Fyre'. I believe, perhaps, this is targeted at me, like the one about my cocoa."  
  
"There was a prophecy about your _cocoa?"_  
  
"Yes! Very strange, Agnes put a prophecy in there specifically about me reading her book while drinking cocoa. I thought I was going to discorporate on the spot when I realized it. Anyway, I think this is similar."  
  
"Demon fire," Crowley blurts out.  
  
"Yes! I think it's a - a clue about how our sides will try to deal with us."  
  
Crowley sucks in a breath and tightens his arm around Aziraphale. It feels like being surrounded by an immense wing. "Oh, no. No, angel," he says softly. But it is not Aziraphale he is disagreeing with.  
  
"It's the only thing I can think of that fits."  
  
Crowley outright pulls Aziraphale closer, and Aziraphale is far too tired to keep up any of the prim nonsense he's carried on for six millennia. He cuddles in, and Crowley accepts when Aziraphale reaches out to join their hands.  
  
"Let me go instead," Crowley says, fingers going tense around Aziraphale’s. "Switch corporations with me. I'll - I'll kill them."  
  
"You will do no such thing," Aziraphale says, with rather more energy than he'd thought he had, lifting his head. He stares with an intensity to match the spark in the demon's full-yellow, long-slitted eyes. "If they would do _that_ to me, imagine what they would do to you if they found out. Heaven doesn't run out of holy water."  
  
"Be worth it to see them--"  
  
"Not to me. Don't just leave me here." _Like I did to you,_ he finishes in his own accursed head.  
  
Crowley stares down at Aziraphale, reigning in his pupils until they go back to their human size. "Yeah. Fine. You want me to go, I can play it cool. I think. Probably."  
  
Aziraphale leans his head against Crowley and takes a deep breath. "Now the logical next step is," he murmurs into Crowley's jacket, "I'll take your corporation, the face of it anyway, and go to Hell for you."  
  
Crowley makes a strangled noise and goes rigid. "I-- You'll-- No!"  
  
"What, you think you're getting out of this without an equal and opposite punishment? You've said multiple times how bad Hell is for punishing their own. If Heaven is going to get demonfire, I have no doubt Hell is going to obtain holy water."  
  
"That's not the only punishment Hell could use. Hell is all about punishment. They could put you in the deepest circle for eternity--"  
  
Aziraphale, not oblivious to the irony of having to convince Crowley about something for once, pauses to consider. "But I don't think that will be the punishment they actually have in mind," he argues. "They'll think it's you, and they will want an execution." Saying the words out loud could make him sick if he dwells on them. "I believe in Agnes."  
  
"Well, fuck. I suppose old Agnes was right about everything else," Crowley says.  
  
Aziraphale nods, glum. "I can't think of what else it would be."  
  
"You know. This'll be like burning the ashes of our already-burnt bridges."  
  
"You don't want to do it?"  
  
"No, no. Of course I want to do it." Crowley pauses for a moment, and when he starts talking again, there might be a smile in his voice. "I've wanted to do it for a long time. I just don't know if _you_ want to do it."

Unspoken are thousands of years of waffling. Cowardice. Fear. Rejection. Aziraphale sighs with the weight of things he's brought on himself. "'Want' is a strong word, as you know. I am very afraid of what could happen and would much prefer for our head offices to just leave us alone. But they won't. Maybe never."  
  
Silence for a few moments. Aziraphale gets the urge to push closer, closer, closer to Crowley, again, even though that's getting quite difficult. Still keeping their hands entwined, Aziraphale orients his whole body toward Crowley, wrapping an arm around his back - and Crowley obliges by resting his chin on Aziraphale's head. Crowley's lanky shape is all-encompassing when he wants it to be, his embrace delightfully serpentine. Aziraphale clings to Crowley like a survivor to a floating raft.  
  
They still don’t drop their handhold. Aziraphale lifts their hands together so he can marvel at it.  
  
"Would it be wrong to...thank you?" he asks. It usually was before.  
  
"No, that's fine. Just don't imply anything good about my character while you're at it."  
  
Aziraphale chuckles. "Crowley. Thank you." Again, they gaze at each other, finally, _finally_ on the same page. Tears prickle at the corners of Aziraphale's eyes. "If I had another 6,000 years--"  
  
"--You're immortal, you _idiot_\--"  
  
"--I couldn't pay you back."  
  
"You don't need to pay me back, angel, that's ridiculous. Just don't die."  
  
Thoughts about physical intimacy cross Aziraphale's mind - namely, how close he and Crowley are right now, how he's seen so many humans do it through the centuries. But when you've denied wanting something for so long, you start to second-guess when you're allowed to ask for it.  
  
Aziraphale settles on an internal compromise. "I think I might like to stay this way for a while, Crowley. If that's all right with you."  
  
Tomorrow morning, they will deal with Heaven and Hell. For now, they'll simply Be. Aziraphale gives himself permission to feel more at home here than he ever has, in over six millennia, in the frigid halls of Heaven. He pulls Crowley's hand to his lips and squeezes gently with the most sincere reverence he's ever felt. Crowley squeezes back.


End file.
